Anywhere But Here
by Lennelle
Summary: Sam doesn't know it at the time, but he's cursed. This is only one of a few curses, but a bad one anyway.


Based on this prompt on **ohsam** from **cowboyguy** : ' _Sam has a kind of supernatural synesthesia. Which might be great when he's hunting, because he can recognize monsters by the color or sound or whatever that they give off. It's less good when he's faced with beings like Lucifer and other big bads, whose power creates an overwhelming sensory experience.'_

I read this prompt and instantly thought 'hey that's kinda like me', minus demons and angels. I don't know if I have synesthesia, but for as long as I can remember words have always had a specific colour and taste that go with them.

This feels unfinished to me, especially since I didn't get around to the 'big bads' part of the prompt. Hopefully, I can add a part 2 later... at some point.

* * *

Demons are sludgy grey, they're a constant hum, a whispering sound like someone lingering on their last breath, they leave a taste in the mouth of eggs that have been left to rot. Sam learns this when he's five years old, first day of Kindergarten. Dad isn't the one to take him to school, it's Dean who holds his hand when they cross the road, it's Dean that waits in the playground along with the parents until Sam can go inside. Miss Madson is the first one Sam sees. She smiles softly with round, peach lips, her eyes are crystal blue, and she reeks of sulphur, sickly enough to look at that Sam throws up all over his sneakers and cries his eyes out until Dad turns up an hour later to take him back to the motel.

Sam doesn't know it at the time, but he's cursed. This is only one of a few curses, but a bad one anyway.

They move out of town a week later. Sam cried all six days he had to sit through Miss Madson's class. He never finds out if she was cured of the thing wriggling around inside her.

* * *

Sam learns these things over the years: werewolves are red. Redder than red. The kind of red that flashes like police sirens or a storm warning. It's a hungry red that tastes salty enough for Sam's lips to twitch. Shapeshifters are a mix of colours, like a swirl of vibrant paint that won't combine no matter how much you stir, it's chaotic and indecisive and whenever Sam comes across a shifter he's left dizzy and disoriented for hours after. Ghosts are... hard to explain. They don't have a colour, they're translucent, but they're cold enough to make Sam shiver and they sound like someone's whispering close enough to his ears that he can feel it.

When Sam is nine he knows what hides in the dark. He also notices a pattern forming around the occurrence of his feelings – the colours, the sounds, whatever they are. This is when he decides to tell Dean first. Or, at least, he tries.

"Can people see monsters?" he asks one day in June. Dad's gone... somewhere, and Dean is shooting empty beer cans off the fence behind their trailer. He lowers the gun and turns to Sam, one eyebrow almost meeting his hairline.

"Huh?" is his response.

"Can people _see_ monsters?" Sam says.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Dean scoffs. He's thirteen now and _fuck_ is his new favourite word.

The sun is beating down on Sam, almost as hard as Dean's impatient glare, so he decides to drop the subject.

He manages to explain to Dean a couple of months or so later. Dad takes them both to catch a werewolf in Milwaukee, and Sam had to leave Sully behind who was soft yellow and playful blue and hummed gentle and soothing like a lullaby just by _being_ , but at least Sam's a real Winchester now. The hunt itself isn't interesting. Sam and Dean wait in the car while Dad talks to some college kid behind an ice cream counter. The guy has a pink striped uniform and a bright smile on, but he's red red red.

Sam tugs on Dean's sleeve and points to the guy behind the counter. "He's the werewolf."

Dean rolls his eyes. "How would you know?"

"I can see it."

Dean doesn't listen, and neither does Dad. Not until two nights later when the moon is fat and bright in the sky and John Winchester puts a silver bullet through the heart of a college kid who sold ice cream to pay his bills. Dad's quiet about it, but it's clear by the way he won't even look at Sam that he's unsettled. He packs them all up and drives straight to Bobby Singer's house.

In the backseat, under the loud grumble of the engine and the whip of wind outside the Impala's windows, Dean says to Sam, "How did you know it was him?"

"I told you," Sam insists. "I _saw_ it."

* * *

Monsters are like flavours; sirens are bitter-sweet, wraiths are sour, chupacabras taste a little less bloody than werewolves. New monsters are a different note of music he's never heard before; a shrill tug on a violin or a smash of knuckles on a piano, or at least that's the closest Sam can explain it to himself. Usually it takes a few times being face-to-face with supernatural beings before he can stomach them. Demons are everywhere, but always strong enough to make his insides turn, at least he's learned not to throw up at the sight of them. Dad has to exorcise one at each school Sam attends, which seems like something important enough to talk about, but they never do.

Sam's fourteen and all he wants is enough time to finish his homework.

* * *

Stanford is equal parts thrilling and terrifying. He has his own real bed – not a motel's or someone's spare room, his _own_ \- to sleep in for the first time in his life, in a room shared with a complete stranger. Making friends is hard, he's never really had friends at all before, and he spends most of his nights doing class readings and assignments while everyone else is getting drunk and friendly. Learning to make conversation with people his own age is like learning a new language. It's lonely, but it's good, and there are no colours or smells or sounds that don't belong in this world.

Until Brady.

Brady is the stranger Sam shared a room with in his first year, and he's eventually Sam's closest friend. In his second year, Brady comes back from Thanksgiving break stinking of sour eggs, sauntering around in a haze of sickly grey. Sam almost calls Dean. Almost.

Pastor Jim arrives in town the day after Sam's frantic phone call and gives him the first hug he's received in over a year. If Sam hangs on a little longer than necessary, neither of them mention it.

"Haven't you grown, my boy!" Jim says proudly, but his expression quickly turns serious. "Where's this demon, then?"

"It's - it's my friend," Sam tells him.

"Did you notice because of your... ability?" Jim asks, kind despite his awkwardness. Only four people know about Sam and the way he can see things, and Sam intends to keep it that way. He doesn't need anyone else to know he's even more of a freak than they likely thought.

Several hours later, Brady's eyes are black as he sweats in the middle of a devil's trap. They're in an abandoned warehouse a little way into the country, far enough that people won't hear any screams. Sam wants to look away, is tempted to more than once, but he thinks of his friend locked inside his own body and thinks he owes it to Brady not to be scared.

"Just you wait Sammy," the Demon speaks through its flesh mouthpiece. "Just you wait for what's coming for you. You're going to be amazing!"

Jim glares warningly at Sam over the top of his bible, the lyrics of the exorcism he chants grow louder.

"What does that mean?" Sam asks, even if every part of him tells him to stay silent.

"You think you're gifted now, kid?" not-Brady says, grinning wide like a Cheshire cat. "You don't know what's in you yet."

The demon's gone the second _audi nos_ leaves Jim's lips, it comes tumbling up Brady's gullet and swirling down into the ground, smouldering like a stubbed-out cigarette. Demons are even more horribly vibrant outside a host, Sam learns, because the moment it's gone, the last of its shockwaves running through him, he feels himself tumbling to the ground.

He wakes up in a motel room with Pastor Jim's soft smile lingering over his head.

"You alright, son?" he asks.

"Brady," Sam says. "Did he – "

He doesn't want to finish that sentence, and he's not sure he wants the answer. Brady is his only real friend and if he dies then it's all Sam's fault. Sam knows it.

"He survived," Jim says gently. Sam doesn't miss the way his eyes linger downwards. "I took him to hospital, but he wasn't quite… present. Demonic possession takes its toll on the body and mind, Sam. Do you understand?"

Sam visits Brady a few days later, when the headaches cease and that sickly grey is no longer stamped behind his eyelids, and he brings along the stupid stuffed sheep Brady always takes with him to exams for luck. It's a ratty little thing, its white wool has darkened over the years, one of the bow strings around its neck has frayed. Brady himself is dull-eyed, blinking tiredly at the gardens below his window, a blanket across his lap.

"Hey," Sam says, but his voice is barely there. He tries again. "Hey. I, uh, brought your sheep. You know I don't believe in luck, but you always ace your tests so I reckon maybe this thing works."

He places the stuffed animal on Brady's lap. Brady doesn't seem to notice.

"You get better, alright?" Sam whispers.

* * *

From then on life is like this: he sits alone at lunch, during classes, around campus. And at night, sleepless, he keeps reminding himself they did the right thing.

One day, his law professor turns up with a demon inside him, sludgy grey like it's oozing all over, leaving Sam shuddering and spitting the taste of rotten eggs. Sam gets up, leaves the lecture hall, leaves the campus, leaves the city, and he never turns back.

Several months and dozens of miles later, he lingers by a phone box in a sweltering little town in Texas. The locals are suspicious and eye him like he's the devil himself, frowning as he sits on his backpack by the phone box for hours on end. He hasn't heard the Impala's gutteral engine in a long time, and as she comes rolling down the road Sam grins from ear-to-ear.

The door creaks as Dean opens it and steps out onto the side of the road, taking Sam in in one long sweep of his gaze.

"Aren't you supposed to be in school?" he asks, eyes wide.

Sam stands up and loops his bag over his shoulder. "Not anymore. I left," he says, and even just thinking about it leaves a lump in his throat. "It was for the best," he adds, more for his own sake than Dean's.

Dean says, "You look like shit."

"I'm being followed by demons, everywhere I go," Sam explains, dropping his voice low. "There's one in the post office over there."

He claps his hand on Dean's arm before he can pull his gun from his belt. He pauses for a second before wrapping his arms around his big brother, squeezing tight like he might lose his grip.

Dean pats his back awkwardly. "Okay... you okay? Jesus, Sam."

Sam pulls away and walks over to the car, fingers brushing the passenger door's handle. "Let's just go, okay?"

Dean's eyes flick briefly back towards the post office as he twiddles the car keys in his hand. With a swift nod, he hops behind the wheel as Sam settles into the passenger seat.

"Where to?" Dean asks.

"Anywhere but here."

* * *

Thanks for reading! I particularly enjoyed writing this one and hope I can explore it some more when I have more time. Lemme know what you think :)


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